Monthly Archives: September 2016

Monarch tagging and end of the 2016 season!

Cooler days and earlier nights can only mean one thing- fall is soon approaching, and with it the last two weekends of our 2016 summer season! That’s right, our last open days will be  Sept. 15-17 and 22-24! If you haven’t made it out yet, these cooler days in mid-September are a great time to visit- the sunchokes are blooming with bright yellow flowers, bees are still busy collecting pollen and nectar, and skipper butterflies are flitting about the garden.

And, for the 3rd year in a row, we’ll be hosting our monarch butterfly tag-and-release event during our open days on Sept 15-17. Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in the United States are famous for their migration each winter; monarchs east of the Rockies head to Mexico, while those west of the Rockies, including in Nevada, head to the coast of California. Our event is part of a citizen science project called the Southwest Monarch Study, aimed at understanding and conserving the monarch migration of the western United States. We’ll have a short introduction to monarch biology followed by tagging an adult monarch (using a small adhesive sticker like the one above) that is then released to complete its migration. These tags can then be recorded by observers in their overwintering habitat. This year our presentations will take place on the hour from 11-2 each of our three open days.

We hope to see you out there in the next couple weeks to enjoy this beautiful late summer in Nevada!

Monarch with tag, 2015

Monarch with tag, 2015